


Sleeping Satellite

by CypressSunn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: F/M, Roswell New Mexico Week 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-09 20:47:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19894108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CypressSunn/pseuds/CypressSunn
Summary: “Go home, Guerin,” Maria tells him, beleaguered. “You look like you haven't slept in days.” Never one to take a hint, Michael sidles closer. Produces his pocket lighter for the cigarette Maria twists from behind her ear. He snaps the sparkwheel igniting the tip, marvels at the delicate shadows her eyelashes cast when she takes a drag.“If I’m not welcome here, I got nowhere to go.”Maria regards him carefully. “You haven't, have you?” she presses. “How long have you been awake?”Michael gives a harsh laugh; days or nights, he’s lost track. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I dream about…” and all he can remember of his mother’s face flashes in his mind before dissolving like Maria’s smoke-rings in the night air. “Staying awake is the better option.”





	Sleeping Satellite

**Author's Note:**

> Roswell New Mexico Week, Day Two: "Family."
> 
> Warning for: grief and mourning, insomnia.  
> S2 Update: Michael's mother was originally credited as "Mara" in the first season. Her name was changed to "Nora" as of season two, most likely to avoid confusion with Maria. However, I can't be bothered to follow suit and she will remain in this story with her original name.

_“I blame you_   
_ for the moonlit sky _  
_ And the dream that died…” _  
_ \- Tamsin Archer _

Michael doesn’t dream since Caulfield. 

Not that he ever much for dreaming before. The short-term recall of successive involuntary images never seemed anything to dwell on. And without any true frame of reference for what the human mind did once locked in REM, he’d only ever known his biology required less sleep than theirs. Evidenced in Michael’s misspent childhood of rising before the desert larks to empty hallways with low ceilings, to bubbled wallpaper anywhere the plaster hadn’t scabbed over from blunt force. Michael remembered feeling every bit the alien in those earliest hours. Trodding over strained carpets and creaking floorboard minefields, cycling into a foreign world devoid of movement, where the lights were off and everyone was home but him.

What he does now, since the prison— he doesn’t call dreaming. 

The exaggerated definition, the ultra-violet tint transmitted to his synapses; all too precise to be a dream and too implacable to be a memory. He’s never seen these badlands before and yet here he is again. Wanders the segregated formations strained out before him, tracing the cracked beds of stone where tributaries once flowed. It’s an unsteady place, evacuated of life, gleaming darkly in burnished red and blood and russet. He finds footprints that lead to the edge of the world, where a ridgeline of rock spires bar him from the starless sky.

There he can see her. Sheathed in nightglow and facing away. 

She is always there beyond the boundary; diaphanous, colored the way lights wraps on water, her hair like dust in the air. He thinks he remembers her smile- both young and old. Thinks, but he can’t be sure. He knows how memories wither and crack, smoothing over with time, taking on different shapes.

Nothing answers the call he lets out. Nothing ever did.

Michael knows he shouldn’t let it hurt this much. It’s not her. Just a fragment of his psyche unweaving.

But he’s sure she might turn and face him the moment he wakes. So sure it convinces his inner ear that he’s falling, crash landing imminent. His body locks in a wrenching jolt. Outside comes the thunderous sound of metal on metal, his powers flown haywire. But he blinks to find he’s still in Roswell, Isobel still curled under him in his trailer bed like a wounded animal. He hasn’t told her about Caulfield, what they lost there, what he lost there. It’s too much for her, judging by her tear-streaked face, her clutching for life at one of Max’s shirts while she sleeps in restless fits.

Michael pulls his sister closer and tries to close his eyes. So he might see his mother’s face again.

Because no, it isn’t dreaming any more than it is a respite but it is something. And if he were not a man of science, Michael would call it something darker. He would call it being haunted.

* * *

“How are you holding up?” Liz asks, at a loss for anything else to say. On the long list of things Michael has been dreading about packing up Max’s things, seeing Liz is near the top. She looks like she’s been sleeping about as well as Michael; hair wild, eyes rimmed red- but if that’s the result of grief or the twenty-four-hour slumber party _Las Hermanas Ortecho_ have been waging here in his brother’s house, he doesn’t ask. It’s already hard enough not to sound as bitter as he feels.

“You know, same old, same old.” Michael can appreciate an old human colloquialism. They’re useful and comforting and utterly pointless.

Liz moves around the precarious piles of literature, trying to help move books into boxes but mostly getting in his way. “I wouldn’t ask normally. I always hated the way people asked me that after Rosa.”

“But?”

“It’s just you look a little… under the weather. And I know you guys don’t get sick so-”

Michael does not feel like getting to Isobel taking up three-quarters of his bed or how it’s harder and harder to sleep since Max. The psychoanalytical potential of his dream’s subject matter alone is enough to keep him up at night.

“I could have packed up his books for you,” Liz offers when met with silence for maybe the third time. She’s shuffling on her feet, back and forth like she is ready to run. 

If anyone should leave, it should be Michael. They all know Max would have wanted Liz and Rosa to have his place. To have somewhere to regroup and heal and prepare to face the world. The empty bookshelves alone make the place feel so devoid of Max that Michael feels like he’s an intruder in someone else's home.

“Trust me, it's better in the long run if I do it.” Michael yawns with a grimace at the field of bound books, paperbacks, and hardcovers in stacks above Liz’s shoulders. Max had been some kind of literature hoarder. Michael and Isobel really should have held an intervention at some point. “Don’t know where we’re gonna put it all but… Isobel wants them close. She still-”

“Still hates me for killing her brother?” Liz’s voice catches, staring at her hands. Michael, in turn, is clutching a book by someone named Salman Rushdie at little too hard, leaving indented nail prints in the cover. They stand there with their heads bowed, missing very different things and unable to look at each other. 

“She still thinks he’s coming back.”

It's why his brother’s corpse is currently floating in a pod with an artfully crocheted duvet thrown over it. Instead of in the ground with a tombstone and some damned dignity. 

“Is he?” Liz asks. Her voice is choked with hope.

Michael turns away, stalling, stowing the book away in a cardboard box. He does not trust himself, reluctant to open his mouth. If he does, he’ll make things worse the way Max always said only he could.

“No, Liz, he’s not.”

* * *

Alex is waiting for him when he pulls up the drive of Sander’s Scrapyard. “I can’t imagine what you’re going through,” Alex tells him when Michael, sitting up from his trailer stoop. It's the first time Michael has seen him since the storm, since Noah, since he got the call from Isobel. The panicked, screaming, trilling phone call where she sobbed how she couldn’t feel him, he’s gone Michael, he’s gone- 

“Tell me if there’s anything you need,” Alex offers, dragging Michael’s thoughts back from the brink. “Let me help you.”

Part of Michael wants to take him up on it. It's the earnest look in his eye, the set in his voice that could almost make Michael believe Alex was ready. He’s waited so long to be the choice Alex made without fear or reservation — but that is not what this is. 

Because the one thing Alex can’t hide from him is how closely he watches Michael. How he catalogs and registers his every movement, every turn, every twitch. He is scared for Michael- that much is clear. And if Michael is being truly honest with himself, he knows Alex should be.

“Can you resurrect the guy who normally does the resurrecting?” Michael asks. “Can you take back what happened at Caulfield?”

“Michael,” Alex edges closer. Moves with such a caution it makes Michael feel like a bomb someone stumbled upon in the desert, wired up with cheap parts and electric tape. _Handle with care_ , it should say on his face; _for the sake of others if nothing else_.

Grief must be a terrible look on him. That, or maybe he just looks as exhausted as he feels.

“Do you love your brothers?” Michael asks without prompting, dead-serious and in a sudden realization. “I mean, you’ve got what? Three of them?”

“This isn’t about my family,” Alex murmurs, “this is about you not being alone right now.”

“This has always been about our families,” Michael insists, eyes wet and dull. “And you didn’t answer me. Do you love your brothers? If you lost one of them-”

“I haven’t been close to them since before I came out,” Alex sputters, stepping back and away. He looks desperately lost and sad when he says, “I- I can’t give you the answer you’re looking for here.”

Michael doesn’t know that he is looking for an answer but agrees with Alex nonetheless. There is nothing they can solve here.

It makes him feel wretched and wistful. Michael is not sure what he might confess to next but behind them, his trailer door swings open. There’s Isobel; wrapped in a thick plush pink robe, face devoid of makeup, hair damp and looking furious.

“You were supposed to be back ages ago,” she accuses Michael. Her voice is tinged with more worry than is necessary; as if she thought Michael might be the next corpse in a cave somewhere. “And you promised me no humans.” She levels an angry look on Alex, who has no idea what he inadvertently landed in the middle of.

“Isobel,” Michael cuts her off. “He was just leaving.”

“Right, I- I was,” Alex backs off, pulling his keys from his pockets. He doesn’t make it far down the drive before he turns back. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he tells Isobel by way of a farewell. He’s not just saying it to say it, it is all genuine compassion because he’s one of the best humans Michael has ever met. Because he can’t be anything less.

Isobel’s lower lip quivers. Her eyes darken and she slams the creaky metal door.

Alex makes a face like he might apologize. Michael stops him. 

“Everything upsets her. It's nothing you did.”

“I’m glad you’re not alone, though,” Alex says, honest and resigned. 

Michael is glad for it too. Doesn’t know if he could contain himself otherwise. He would probably leave Roswell a smoldering heap in his rearview without his sister.

When Alex is walking away, Michael thinks this a different kind of wreckage they are leaving in their wake. Like this is the last time they will meet like this; offering and wanting and still not knowing what to do about each other. And Michael doesn’t want to string out the hope but he doesn’t want the end to resound so emptily and final on his part. 

“Call your brothers,” Michael tells him. 

Alex stops in his tracks.

“Yeah, it's a terrible idea, I know.” From what Michael has seen from the splintered Manes family tree, the suggestion could only be a hopeless venture. “Just try anyway- maybe one of them will surprise you.” 

“You really think so? That they're capable of that?” Alex asks. He half looks like he wants to hope, like he wants an excuse to try to salvage his family. 

Michael feels guilty justifying any such faith, knows how easily it fails. But has to admit the truth. 

“I know that mine did.”

* * *

Michael thinks the reason Isobel likes holding up inside his trailer instead of dragging him to her place is that it lacks mirrors. There is none of the polished, immaculate surfaces around every corner and every bend. Here they could choose to never examine the ruin too closely. Never be confronted by the people they are becoming without him.

It also helped Isobel’s finicky, usually pressed and prim self, to fall to pieces without shame.

“I’m not sorry I ruined your little moment with Alex,” she throws out at him when he’s inside. She’s flopped over his bed, her bottles of acetone tipped over his table, and what appears to be a manicure set in disarray on his kitchenette counter.

“We weren’t having a moment,” says Michael defensively. “Just going around in circles, just going round in circles like always.”

“Did you get Max’s stuff?” she asks, hopeful and scared. “Is that what took so long?”

“Sanders had a dozen jobs lined up for me. Had to pick them up after overtime.” Isobel ducking out of the Roswell Board of Tourism had fit nicely into her rehab cover story. But Michael still needed to work.

“You know I had to open three storage lockers in your name just to put ‘em somewhere.”

“Good.” Isobel snips. “Max loves those books. They don’t get to keep them.”

Michael flinches at her use of the present tense. “Iz-”

“And don’t defend them,” she raises her voice with a pointed finger. “Don’t defend any of them. You were right about humans all along. Especially the Ortechos. I’m sorry I ever thought otherwise. All those years trying to be human and look at us-”

“None of this is their fault,” Michael says in a half-hearted rebuttal because he only half believes it.

Isobel looks ready to argue, but her face crumples and she sinks into herself. “You’re right. It’s Noah’s fault for keeping his corpse trophy where our do-gooder brother could find it,” her voice breaks off in a husk. “And if Noah’s to blame that technically means that it's my fault, too.”

“How do you figure that?” Michael demands, exasperated. 

“Well, we did swear ‘what’s mine is yours.’ So yay, I guess I killed Max too!”

“You can’t blame yourself, either,” Michael retorts, already exhausted from their many go-arounds with this logic. “Look, maybe it's time we try the novel idea of holding Max responsible for his own actions.”

“That’s easy to say when he isn’t here to defend himself!”

“Isobel-”

“He would still be here if he had called us!” she cries, her weak voice still managing to ring around the trailer. “If either of us had been with him, we would have seen that it was too much, that it was killing him.”

For a second, Michael is back at Caulfield. Alarms and sirens roaring, complete and total immolation imminent at any moment. She’s on the other side of the glass and Michael can’t reach her. His powers aren’t strong enough, but he can’t stop. He digs deeper, pushes harder, wracks his body for every ounce of strength. He could die saving her and be happier for it-

But she hadn’t wanted to be saved.

“No, Isobel,” Michael says, quiet and bracing, “that wouldn’t have stopped him. Nothing was going to change his mind.”

“You don’t know that!” she agonizes.

“Yeah, I do. Nothing could have saved Max. Not even us.”

Isobel looks up at him like he’d slapped her. He can almost see the exact second her last hope ripped in two right in front of him. Funny thing is, he had promised her a lot of things since the storm, since finding Max dead and cold. Promised that she could stay with him as long as she needed, that he would get rid of all of Noah’s things, run interception with her parents, bring her junk food for her cheat day, and that he would always, always come back and never break her heart.

At least he kept most of those promises, he thinks, watching her crawling away defeated onto the bed and under the blankets.

“I can’t carry this for you, Iz. I can’t fix it, either, and you know how much I hate anything I can’t fix.”

She says nothing but the room contracts around them. Michael can feel it; the long stretch of the rest of their lives without him.

“He’s gone. And the dead don’t get a say in how we grieve but if Max could see you right now, he’d-”

“I want to be alone now,” her voice trembles, muffled under a mountain of fabric.

Michael’s will to argue dissolves. 

He bows out, taking his hat off a pile of her laundry. The lump under the covers barely moves as he exits, but when he turns the key in the ignition he feels her red-violet touch at the back of his neck, whispering _“but you’ll come back right?”_

“ _Always_ ,” he sends back in a threadbare thought, but he knows she hears him.

* * *

Michael could very well try to sleep in the back of his truck bed or crash at Isobel’s- he still has a key. But he’s so beyond rest he feels almost clear-headed. He just has to ignore the shakes in grip on the steering wheel. 

What he wants is a drink. What he needs is to see her.

“She ain’t working tonight, Guerin,” Big Jim tells him at the door. Michael doesn’t fall for the line. He blows the grumbling bouncer a kiss and saunters right in. She’s never far from her beloved bar. If she’s not working yet she will be by the end of the night.

A waitress he’s never met takes his order. She doesn’t know his usual or anything of his reputation. But she knows his tab has been cleared. “That tall handsome officer came in and paid it off a week ago or so,” the waitress purrs with a blush. “He was real, real sweet. He tipped me even though all he had was a glass of water.” 

The floorboards shift under Michael, suddenly unsteady and faltering. Nearly knocks him on his ass but he grips the bar counter to stay upright. It’s just like Max to screw with him from beyond the grave. To one-up him with his charity one last time.

Starting a fight with a few townies is what helps him get his bearings back. Its feels blissfully good to deal out a little hurt for a change. To not think about his brother’s red, shining hands. Isobel’s crumbling will to live. Liz’s broken heart or Alex’s pity.

“You’re done, Guerin!” someone yells.

And Christ, ain’t that the truth?

He is kicked out, quite unceremoniously so, landing in the alley when two bouncers heave him up by the armpits and out the backdoor. They clang the door shut behind him and he can hear the latch shackle shut over the live band. It's your average Saturday night, nothing new, just with a little more blood on his face than usual. Michael’s rusty is all. 

It feels good all the same, fresh bruises in the night air. He could pass out here. No one would stop him. Especially not Deputy Evans, tsking and tutting about loitering and public intoxication. 

The metal door unlatches a second later. Michael is up and on his feet, fists raised, teeth bared, ready for a second round. But he isn’t prepared for the sight of her cutting the light through the doorway. Her hair pinned up with a wisp of it in her face, her frown taking him to task without a word.

“Maria.”

“Don’t get up on my account,” she chides, arms crossed over her apron.

Michael straightens his shirt. “I may have been raised by animals and junkies but I know to stand in the presence of a lady.”

Maria suppresses a chuckle. “Save the platitudes. You know there’s blood on your face, right?”

“Yes. Yes, I do.” 

Michael steps closer, and then closer. Into her space and he can smell her perfume, the scent of grape. She’s had a glass of red tonight. 

“They told me you weren't working tonight.”

“Someones gotta balance the books,” she sighs. “I was in the back until I heard a very familiar ruckus. Since when do you start a fight after one drink?”

“I told you to stop letting him pay off my tab,” he says remorseless and bitter.

Maria’s brows draw together, her lips press closed and she nods in her little crestfallen way, tilting to the side. Her voice is gentler when she tells him, “you look terrible.”

“People keep saying that. It’s beginning to hurt my feelings.” But Maria doesn’t laugh so Michael changes tactics. “I guarantee it feels worse than it looks. Any chance you'll let me back in for a stiff one? Maybe soothe the hurt a little.”

“Not tonight, Guerin. It would send the wrong message to my other clientele.”

“I'm not like your other clientele.”

They don't talk about the kiss, but they're close enough for an encore. They pressed pause as soon as they found his brother; all of it too much, too soon. She could barely wrap her head around his truths, and Michael couldn’t put the burden of his loss on her. But together, it feels the same as it always has. Familiar, worn-in, on the verge of something, if one of them would just give in.

She reaches. Her thumb grazes his jaw and over his wounded lip. She pulls away. Always the resolute one.

“Go home, Guerin,” Maria tells him, beleaguered. “You look like you haven't slept in days.” Never one to take a hint, Michael sidles closer. Produces his pocket lighter for the cigarette Maria twists from behind her ear. He snaps the sparkwheel igniting the tip, marvels at the delicate shadows her eyelashes cast when she takes a drag.

“If I’m not welcome here, I got nowhere to go.”

Maria regards him carefully. “You haven't, have you?” she presses. “How long have you been awake?”

Michael gives a harsh laugh; days or nights, he’s lost track. “You wouldn’t believe the shit I dream about…” and all he can remember of his mother’s face flashes in his mind before dissolving like Maria’s smoke-rings in the night air. “Staying awake is the better option.”

“Max?” she asks.

“Worse.”

Maria’s features soften. She stubs out her smoke, replaces it behind her ear and pulls him closer. And like a satellite in orbit, he follows her gravity. “Come on,” she tells him, drawing him back inside.

* * *

Michael doesn’t think they're headed back towards the bar so much as he wishes for it. But they detour another way, rounding through the back. The kitchen staff is less than impressed by the sight of him as their boss leads Michael by them through the narrow pass. Arnie the dishwasher who has hated Michael for years mutters something rude under his breath. Michael retaliates by concentrating hard on the bucket of water at Arnie’s feet, toppling it over on the man shoes.

As they exit the steamy little kitchen, Maria gives him one reprimanding look over her shoulder. Michael raises his hands placating. Her knowing his truth means he’s going to get away with a lot less shit around here. 

But Michael would gladly make the trade again, gladly tell her everything again if it means he can have this. 

He’s drawn into the inner sanctum of her backroom. It's a whirlwind of papers and boxes. Sparsely furnished aside from the desk that Michael can vividly picture sitting Maria on top of. “Whatever you’re thinking, stop,” she tells him, pouring cold water on his fantasy.

“What’s the point of all this privacy if we don’t take advantage?”

Maria ignores his obvious invitation, too busy rifling around her desk drawers. “The only one who would be taking advantage is me. You’re dead on your feet.”

“Of all the things I don’t need to be protected from,” Michael scoffs, “you are at the top of the list.”

Maria looks up at him, her eyes shining and kind. Her lips move but no sound comes out. She’s never held her tongue with him before. Michael wants to cross over, pull the soft, solid heat of her close and pull the words out of her. Whatever they are, he can take it. As long as they’re from Maria.

“Here, found them,” she says, slipping a small vial in his hands.

“And this is?”

“Lavender, chamomile, clary sage and- no, on second thought, not the bergamot, too lively a scent,” she says. Noticing Michael's incredulous look, she mistakenly thinks he needs further explanation into homeopathic remedies. “Some find it soothing. It's high energy, circulating, but I know you too well. It's too loud a scent for you.”

“DeLuca, do you even hear yourself?”

“Just trust me. The wrong oils in the mix are distracting, it’ll disrupt your dream patterns and-”

“My dreams need disrupting.” He pockets the brown-yellow oil. Maria rolls her eyes at him, and then he sees it behind her. Out of the corner of his eye, laying splayed open on the desk. 

“What’s that back there?” he asks, moving before he can help himself.

“Nothing,” she says, but not objecting to Michael reaching for the leather-bound book.

It's an overflowing sketchbook. It’s got papers scattered about, some even taped to the back wall and others to the iron-barred window the desk is shoved up against. The loose dog-eared pages have other papers stuffed inside; some ruler lined and others little more than misprinted receipts. Every blank space is covered in ink scrawled portraits and profiles. There’s hazy graphite-lined eyes, charcoal lips and frowns and wrinkled hands, ballpoint penned shadows of people he doesn’t recognize, but they’re all so uncannily real he's sure he could meet them strolling down any street in Roswell.

“Didn’t know you were an artist, DeLuca,” says Michael, lifting the book and turning the pages. He picks out a half dozen illustrations of Rosa, one or two of old Sheriff Valenti, and even that poor son of a bitch Hank Gibbons. She somehow managed to catch that bastard in a good light.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she simpers with a coy promise. She snaps the book shut in his hands with the finality of last call.

A loose sheaf of paper falls free. It floats down to the floorboards like a feather. Michael lifts it with a flourish of his powers, half showing off, half not paying attention until the page is at his fingertips.

And here she is.

The long fine hair, high cheekbones, that slim nose and the slight curve to her rounded mouth. Even the eyes are captured perfectly; all delicate and brown and smoked over. She's smiling in the sketch with the same gentle imploring spark she had when she told him to run.

Unconcerned, Maria takes the paper from his hands and Michael numbly lets it slide through his grasp. He can’t move. He can’t think. The same face that had been evading him in all his tireless lament. Right there in front of him and then gone again.

“How much for the drawing?” Michael asks, his voice feeling like someone else’s.

“Guerin, you don't even pay your tab-”

“How much, DeLuca?” he tries again suddenly. He’s reeling; there’s too much force in his voice and when he reaches for Maria he yanks her back too hard.

Michael has never so much as raised his voice with Maria. Always knew he wouldn’t be too happy with the end result if he had. With the way she looks him over dangerously slow.

“They're not for sale, Michael.”

Michael is close to doing something crazy; collapsing, begging, pleading. But Big Jim walks in with his sour face. “Boss, we can’t keep letting him back in here. Every drunk is gonna want special treatment. The Joneses are already kicking up a fuss.”

Maria is looking at him pointedly, not sure of what she is seeing. She closes Michael’s hands around the brightly labeled vials- her book of illustrations is gone, she put it away somewhere he can’t see.

“Guerin was just leaving.” 

This time they don’t throw him out. Michael goes willingly, walking in a bone-weary daze.

* * *

_'They aren't for sale.'_

Michael wants to laugh. Maria DeLuca, the queen of making a buck, little miss all-about-the-ends, refusing to sell some scrap of paper.

He knows in the back of his hazed-over thoughts he did himself no favors coming at her like that. If there is a calm and practical approach to seeing the sudden likeness of someone he'd been forced to leave for dead- someone he loved- he’s not sure what it is.

Only that it is not Michael sitting out in his truck, loitering off the shoulder of the road at three in the morning. He’s watching for the last of the _Wild Pony_ closing staff. Counts each of their headlights driving off into the night. The only cars leftover in the lot belong to inebriates carted off to the drunk tank. The coast is clear.

It's a terrible idea, but knowing this doesn’t stop him turning the locks of the front door with his mind. He had already cut the power- all without blowing the fuses, something Max never managed. It’s a long walk to the backroom, past the lifeless shadows of stacked chairs and the mounted longhorn steers. It's so unnaturally still and his footfalls echoing reminds him of the dreamscape. He almost expects to see her standing in the office behind lock and key.

But the room is barren. The paperwork, ledgers, and boxes are all gone. The sketchbook with his mother’s face is nowhere to be found. Crossing the room in disbelief, Michael does find one thing. Atop the desk is a pre-poured shot next to a fifth of bourbon. Under the glass is a folder note:

_Behind you._

At the front of the bar, blue and red lights cut through the windows and a siren pierces the air.

Damn, she’s good.

* * * 

Ditching the cops is easy. He could do it in his sleep. By this point, he may as well be. He sleepwalks through cutting the power to the lamp posts and splitting the fuel lines to their engines. Diverts their attention with clattering noises in the distance. A toppled trashcan here, a blown manhole cover there. Soon they're chasing their tails, hoofing it on foot in the wrong direction.

Michael rubs his eyes until the throbbing in his head lessens to a dull but tolerable ache. He’s not sure what time it is or how long he has been walking. Realizes he’s passing Yellow Tree Rd. for the third time when he looks up and sees her.

Maria is halfway out her front door when Michael lands at her step. She’s still dressed but her hair is down and she’s got her keys and purse tucked under her arm. She doesn’t turn around when she latches the door and still knows that he’s there. “Whatever it is, Guerin, I’m sorry. I don’t have time. Some lowlife broke into the bar and now I have to go and- what is that?”

Blame it on his sleep-addled mind, the fatigue eating away at his vision. It takes him a minute to realize she means the bottle in his hand. He doesn’t remember swiping from the tabletop. Has he had it this whole time?

“Its, uh, single-barrel, ten year, grain bourbon?” He reads back the label. “You left it on the-”

“I know where I left it. Give me one good reason not to go get my Daddy's old pliers and pull out every tooth in your bottom jaw.

The threat doesn't even register.

“Earth to Guerin, explain yourself before-”

Michael starts laughing. Or at least he hopes its laughter and not tears.

“Every time I close my eyes I see his body.” The crickets fall silent or Michael’s senses narrow in. It’s squeezing him, this hurt. His heart can't keep up. “I see him lying in that dirt, or floating in that pod because Isobel won’t let me bury him with any goddamn dignity. It’s like what Noah did to Rosa but worse because we’re actually supposed to love him. And Isobel… if I so much as blink, if I take my eyes off her, she gets so quiet- and she is never quiet. I start thinking she might be blacking out again and I get scared!” His voice cracks because he might be yelling. Maria dives in to shush him, but Michael can’t stop. “Scared because I think she might hurt herself and I can’t be what she needs. And any other time I get a moment of peace, Liz calls and Rosa needs something and I can't say no, no matter how much I want to. Because I hate him for the choice he made, for choosing them and… I could spend the rest of my life hating him for it but so long as I live I will never forget my brothers face. It is burned into my mind. But her; she's just burned to nothing and I need, I need…”

Michaels eyes water over and the world is wobbling. Everything is swimming in colors, blurred together. Everything but the sight of her, furious and distraught. It stabilizes through the threshold when she wrangles him down limb by limb to the couch. He is on his back, his boots are off, and he can feel Maria everywhere. She pulls at her wrists like she might spin away from him if he doesn’t hold on.

“Guerin, you close your eyes right now or so help me-”

And the warm blackness falls over everything. 

* * *

Mercifully, he doesn’t dream. His brain is too fried for that or maybe the ghosts have had their fill. Hell if he knows either way. Michael isn’t even sure exactly where he is for several long moments. Not that it worries him. He can smell burning candles, spices, leather oil and tobacco. There are thick drawn curtains over all the windows, blocking out a pink sunrise. The faint clatter of wind chimes nearby, or drinking glasses, one or the other. It’s comforting here. He doesn’t want to leave.

“You’re awake,” Maria observes, off to the wayside with a steaming mug. It smells roasted and caramelized and it makes his mouth water.

“You got any more of that for me?”

“Oh,” Maria smiles sweetly, “I’ve got something for you.” She sets the mug down on her coffee table to free her arms and lobs a pillow at his head with all her might. “You scared the hell out of me, Michael! You showed up half dead and I thought I was gonna have to drag you to a hospital- which I nearly did!”

“You can’t bring an alien to a human hospital-”

“Yeah, I know that now! Kyle said as much when I called him, in a panic I might add. So you’re welcome, that you’re waking up here and not in federal custody!”

“Thank you,” Michael says earnestly, as genuine as he can but she doesn’t slow down. She’s all fired up as he has never seen her before; at least not over him. Brusque movements and her face hot, throwing fuming stares. She looks like the one who’s been up all night; like she lost sleep over him.

“You weren’t making any sense last night!” she accuses.

“I know.”

“You broke into my bar!”

“I know,” repeats himself.

“I called the cops on you!”

“Yeah, I know- well, no,” Michael pauses, running scratching fingers through his hair. “That parts are still a little hazy. I remember the whiskey and a note. How did you do that?”

“A very strong premonition came to me as I was locking up. It told me to empty out my office. I knew somebody wanted to steal my ledgers or my cash box or something.”

“It wasn’t about the money. I would never- Maria,” he says her name firmly, waits for her to stop pacing like a caged tiger. “Maria I would never steal from you. I just- You said it wasn’t for sale and I couldn’t let it go-”

Maria removes a slip of folded card-stock from her back pocket. She slides it into his hands. There she is; beautiful and haloed in ink.

“I told you it’s not for sale because _none_ of my art is. They’re not like my bar-side fortunes. When the faces come to me, it’s personal. Kinda sacred- and don’t you laugh.”

“I’m not,” Michael vows with his throat dry. “I’m not laughing.”

“Most times when people see a loved one in my sketches, they ask _nicely_ for it and I hand it over. Free of charge.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, and Maria sits down next to him, rubbing his shoulders rhythmically. It's how she lets him know he’s been forgiven. 

“How do you even know Mara?”

Michael freezes. He feels like his chest might cave in. “Is that her name? Are you- are you sure?”

Maria nods. “All the people that come to me in my dreams have names, Michael.”

Michael sways forward and cradles his head in his hands. He forces in a shaky breath. He says the name over and over and over. He can't breathe around it. He's afraid he might choke on it.

“You didn’t know," Maria shushed him gently, a soft hand on his back.

“I don’t know anything about her,” he admits miserably.

“Oh,” Maria sat back, closing her eyes in focus. She hums and wrings her hands with a nervous fretting. “She loved… music and singing and dancing. Her favorite things were the color of the moons and things that grow. She hated small spaces and loud noises. She missed her home… and a little boy with curly hair.”

Biting back a sob, Michael is certain if the grief of it all doesn’t kill him, this good woman will.

“How do you do that?” he asks, voice thick with awe.

Maria tucks her hair behind her ear, looks at a loss. Like she’s afraid she’s done something wrong or barged into something private. Michael cups her face with his hands and she eases into his touch.

“I don’t know,” she confesses. “It just happens. I dream and… Sometimes the universe reaches out. And love always leaves an imprint- you just have to feel for it.”

* * *

They make it to the bed. Tangling themselves into a tired heap under the blankets. Legs twined and chests close, Michael lets her know just how uncomfortable her too-soft pillowcases are. Maria lets him know he’s welcome to crash on the floor. But she’s not moving and neither is he. Between them, they haven’t had anywhere close to a good night’s rest. They're exactly where they want to be.

She cancels her plans and he answers Isobel’s texts. It doesn’t much matter in the end. She was going to spend the day with Alex but he’s already left a voice message; he’s out of town, apologies for the short notice. He’s out on the rez with his mother and brothers, it couldn’t wait. And Isobel’s fifty new unread texts are haphazard and confusing: _bringing his books back, he would want them on the shelves, right?_ Followed by _talking 2 Rosa. she let me in and didn’t run for the hills. thats progress?_ And then _why is burying the hatchet so hard? its not like *I* killed her_ and _Max would be proud of me, right?_

He types back _I know he would_ , then tosses his phone aside. He’s happy for his sister but the blue light is killing his eyes.

“Everything okay?” Maria asks, as she stretches out and curves against him.

“No.” It’s an admission he hasn’t let himself make in a long, long time. “But it's better.”

Maria props up her chin on her hands, minds him with a thoughtful look. “I’m telling you now Guerin, just because I'm psychic doesn't mean I have all the answers,” she warns. “You have to tell me things, you have to tell me what’s wrong.”

“I will,” Michael swears. Because he doesn’t talk about Caulfield enough. Doesn’t talk about Max enough. But now what he wants to do is yank up Maria’s scratchy bohemian quilt over both their heads. He’s starting to think maybe Isobel has the right idea. There’s an appeal of hiding out under bedding and not coming up for air. Not just yet. Maybe after tomorrow.

He kisses Maria sleepily and they drift together.

* * *

In the badlands, he follows the familiar path. Past the wind sharpened stones and skies carved out of absence, where he hears the shadows of scampering unseeable things. There’s sweat on his brow and rocks in his shoes. He knows exactly where this leads but still, he follows it.

There’s a whistle in the air through the straw grasses. It pushes him under a rock arch that opens up to a ravine. Alongside the ledge is Maria picking through the overgrown brambles of what looks like prickly pear. She’s made a crown out of the shimmering flowers.

“The needles don’t hurt,” she astonishes.

Michael isn’t surprised. He knows now that nothing here hurts. It can’t. Not here in his mother’s dream.

He takes Maria by the hand, has to pull her away from the rocks, the cloistered walkways of rocks that gleam like cured oyster shells. They trip headlong into brushes and climb over nests of creatures in hiding. They find smoking pits of charcoal and think they’ve just missed someone. Overhead the sky is peeling away. Countless lights bleed through like dead stars coming back to life.

“The constellations are backwards,” Maria muses. Pointing up she shows him, “that’s Canis Major and there’s Orion. Only they’re facing the wrong way.”

Michael shrugs and grins. “Not if you come from the other side of the galaxy.”

They don’t stop there. Move further and further on until coming to the edge. She’s waiting there beyond the spires. Still out of reach- and Michael knows that will never change. But he can see her face beaming down at him.

He pulls Maria close, entwines her fingers with his. It’s then that he feels it. The nameless, shapeless auras that run through Maria like water. The imprint she taps into- the way his mother’s last moment reverbs through the everything of the existence, through the extant and the extinct. He lets his mother’s hope fill him up and doesn’t let go.

_**fin**. _

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Roswell Week!  
> Lyrics courtesy of Tamsin Archer, circa 1992  
> One Hundred and One Shots prompt #03. Dream.
> 
> A disclaimer in after thought; I struggle with insomnia and it was very cathartic in to translate some of that into Michael's grief. And by that admission, I take full responsibly for the transference onto his actions and outbursts and mercurial gruffness - namely because that's me at any given day at 4 AM.


End file.
